Israel has been on the receiving end in their relationship with God. They have received a promise, they received the good work of God that freed them from captivity, and they received the promised land. It was not earned nor deserved. Rather God had chosen them to be his people and in his grace he has blessed them. But part of the promise to Abraham was for the people to be a blessing to the world, and that is not something the people always excelled at.
Having been transformed from one man receiving a promise to a powerful nation, Israel is now in the position to be a blessing for others, but they keep their blessing to themselves. The leadership hoards and the rich become richer. Even when God makes it explicitly clear that he has a plan for Jonah to go to a rival city, Nineveh, Jonah flees acting as though he’d rather die than give the Assyrians a chance to repent. This is not the way God wants his people to act and it certainly isn’t the way that God has treated them.
God shows his love to us even while we were his enemies. But too often we will only love those who already love us.
Year in the Bible 